The Stars wanted to have a unique way to mark the Fourth of July. They just weren't smart about it. That doesn't make them unique.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Well, what a bottle-rocket-with-a-broken-stick Fourth of July this is starting out to be.

Here we ought to be celebrating the Declaration of Independence, cherishing our freedom, reveling in our history and gorging on spareribs. Instead, We the People from these United Colonies sadly seem ever more divided.

Sometimes it's something so silly and benign that makes it happen.

For instance, the Huntsville Stars' "Second Amendment" promotion Wednesday night. The gun giveaway from Larry's Pistol and Pawn has been canceled. They tried to spin it as part of a raffle, but beyond the semantics there is this: Guns. Were. Being. Given. Away.

After reading some of the post-cancellation online comments, I hope some of those folks are more responsible and thoughtful with their Second Amendment rights than they are with their First Amendment ones.

Why, you'd have thought Baseball Itself was putting an erase to the Constitution, since Stars' general manager Buck Rogers said the decision was urged by "governing bodies."

Let me clear up a couple of things:

It has nothing to do with a Second Amendment debate.

It has everything to do with doing business.

A minor league team, especially one struggling as mightily as the Stars at the box office and in community perception, needs to avoid controversy. If it's caving to political correctness, as a reader has suggested, well, don't most good businesses, if not overtly, maintain political correctness in order to succeed?

This isn't the first promotion Minor League Baseball has discouraged. It won't be the last.

The real problems are beyond the Second Amendment debate.

The Stars wanted to have a unique way to mark the Fourth of July. They just weren't smart about it. That doesn't make them unique. I'm talking to you, holding the lit Roman candle between your knees. I'm talking to you, with car keys in your hand and a six-pack in your belly.

They should have been acutely aware this would lead to negative publicity. Rogers told me he still thought it was a great idea, appropriate "for this part of the country." To me, that's a broad stereotyping he should avoid. There should be, as Fox Sports pointed out on its website, an awareness on mixing guns and athletes right now.

Now, nothing personal against pawn shops, but the Stars' marketing outreach should be greater.

This is an affluent community with major companies. The Stars' stagnation comes from the inability to get in those doors and gain their support. Owner Miles Prentice would be terrific at that, and I encouraged him last December to visit for a week and meet with the A-lister community and business leaders. Nothing.

Because of an economic Catch-22, with not enough revenue being generated, Prentice can't or won't hire somebody with the polish, talent, local knowledge and experience to sell to a major-company level. Instead, marketing and group sales are left to eager but callow youngsters in a revolving-door front office.

Until all this ado, my Fourth of July column was going to based on a letter from John Adams, our second president, to wife Abigail, that I stumbled upon recently doing some light reading.

Here's what Adams wrote 237 years ago about this glorious holiday:

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. ... It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore."

Games. Sports. Guns.

So maybe the Stars were onto something after all...

Mark McCarter writes columns about news and sports for The Huntsville Times and al.com. Reach him at mmccarter@al.com